News

Lady Gaga’s ‘ARTPOP’ tops Billboard chart

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lady Gaga’s third studio album, “ARTPOP,” debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday after three months of steady promotion behind singles “Applause” and “Do What U Want.”

The album sold 258,000 copies in its first week of release, according to figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. Fifty-seven percent of those sales were digital downloads, Billboard said.

It is the 27-year-old pop singer’s second No. 1 album on the weekly U.S. chart. “Born This Way” debuted in the top spot in 2011, selling 1.1 million copies in its opening week, helped by a 99-cent promotion on online retailer Amazon.

Lady Gaga, one of the world’s most recognizable singers, was unable to match this year’s top-selling debut, Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience,” which sold 968,000 copies in its opening week in March.

Pop hits compilation “Now 48″ entered the chart at No. 3 with 114,000 in sales, while “Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas,” a holiday album by the cast of reality TV series “Duck Dynasty” dropped a spot to No. 4 with 66,000.

Other new albums in the top 10 this week were the Beatles’ “On Air: Live at the BBC Volume 2″ at No. 7 with 37,000 in sales and R&B singer-songwriter Jhene Aiko’s debut, “Sail Out,” an EP that sold 34,000 copies, good enough for eighth.

Eminem’s song “The Monster,” which features R&B singer Rihanna, was the top song on the digital songs chart with 243,000 downloads in the past week.

Albums sales for the past week were 5.4 million, a 5 percent decline from the same week last year, Billboard said.

Digital song sales were down 10 percent to 19.9 million downloads compared to the same week last year, according to the trade publication.